Transform entities generate in extensions 2.0 into custom devices

[rdinis]

Hi all,

Im using SNMP extension 2.0 and the metrics collected are stored in a entity.

I would like to visualise the information in the tab Technology overview, but for that I think I need to transform the entity generate in the extension to a custom device and custom device group.

I dont like the way to search entities in Dynatrace find-your-new-entities-un-ui , having to write the entityType in url to find the entities, for me its a bad way to navigate in the Dynatrace UI, and this way that im trying to implement would solve this problem.

[jegron]

Hosts monitored via extension 2.0 no longer appear as a custom device, and therefore no longer in Technology.

You have to create a dashboard with the drill down capability to your 2.0 devices and its Unified Analysis page.

For example :

https://www.dynatrace.com/hub/detail/snmp-generic/?query=snmp#screenshots

To build your extension you can use https://developer.dynatrace.com/extensions-v2/dynatrace-extensions-vscode/ 🙂

[rdinis]

Thanks for your answer. 😁
Is it possible to create a custom device via API and create a relationship with the entity?
That way would solve my problem.

[Mike_L]

As the way forward with external entities in Dynatrace is generic topology I don't think you should try to "hack" it with the custom devices. Could you create a product idea for visualizing generic entities so your use case is captured?

[rdinis]

My use case is like this:

• Hundreds of rooms with devices. The rooms are very similiar between each other.
• Each room has different people in charge so I need to split the information by room
• To monitor i will be using oneagent, activegates extensions and oneagent plugins 1.0, so hosts and custom devices.
• I need to create dashboards by room and a dashboard overall status.

The architecture that im thinking is like this:

[Custom Device Group]  - Room

          [Custom Device] - Room_<room_code>

                  [Custom Device] - type_b_serial_number1 [Child Of Room_<room_code>]

                  [Host] - type_a_serial_number1 [Child Of Room_<room_code>]

[Host  Group]  - Device_type_A

          [Host] - type_a_serial_number1

          [Host] - type_a_serial_number2

[Custom Device Group]  - Device_type_B

          [Custom Device] - type_b_serial_number1

          [Custom Device] - type_b_serial_number2

[Mike_L · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Generic entities and generic topology could be used perfectly for that, including grouping hosts as well as linking hosts to generic entities. For more information you can see this part of the documentation: https://www.dynatrace.com/support/help/extend-dynatrace/extend-topology/custom-topology

If you have a need to visualize generic entities on the technologies page, please go to the product ideas section of the community forum.

Mike

[rdinis]

Thanks for your time and attention.

I have already add the idea in the  community forum. 😊

Im having some problems to understand all the possibilities using the documentation custom topology . 

The devices I have to monitor in each room are very different in terms of monitoring implementation (OneAgent, plugins python in ActiveGate, Legacy Application that send a state to log files, SNMP extension 2.0). In the end I need to have a way to have all this information aggregated.

So, your recommendation is to forget passing the metrics from entities to custom devices. Instead, I send metrics from OneAgents and the other monitoring implementation to entities. 

Do you have any example to extract metrics from a custom device or host to entity?

[Mike_L]

Hi,

The idea is to still use hosts, but to link to them through generic relationships to the entities created by the other parts of your metric gathering.

I’d recommend to reach out to the chat for more information and potentially get our services team involved who can create the base for you.

Mike